May 06, 2006

Crazy about the (other) roundball

Alright, I wont start smack talking, because up until this year baseball at the University of Kentucky was an afterthought. Not now. The Bat Cats are 34-11 after ending an 11-game winning streak that Mississippi brought into yesterday's game. The Cats also sit atop the SEC East with South Carolina losing against Georgia.

The Cats are 13-6 vs. Top 25 teams and own a 12-7 road/neutral record. Talk of Omaha and quite frankly, how we get there from here, permeates Lexington now. ("Now, what's a super regional?") The school did officially bid to the NCAA just yesterday about hosting a regional site and now we sit back and will find out what happens.

Coach John Cohen insists that the Cats won't look ahead, determined on finishing its business with Ole Miss, but Cat fans are warming up to traveling with another team. The ballpark at home is certainly seeing some fannies touch some dusty seats with the team eclipsing the 2,000 attendance mark for the fifth straight game.

When Mitch Barnhart was brought in as athletic director he mentioned about improving the entire department, not just basketball and football. In truth, he has done very well with the smaller sports - but he continues to take heat for football and now, basketball with the Final Four drought reaching gasp, nine years.

Kudos to the other roundball sport for getting UK fans excited this year.

1 comment:

The Pat Forde thing makes sense I guess. I still like the guy, only met him recently though, and honestly, I never totally followed his career there until he made it to ESPN.

I am a DIEHARD UK basketball fan myself, but I shy away from the columns in the paper because, especially last season, you just wanna read good stuff about a struggling team, not honesty.

I hated how they teased us against UConn. I remember being at the AAA in Dallas watching that game after Bucknell was smoked by Memphis in the second round, Forde and another writer, Dave Jones, were in the little lounge area, the night before, Forde and I were at the hotel bar talking Tubby and UK hoops and the subject of Randolph Morris was brought up, and Forde said he was one of the keys if UK was to upset UConn.

Yeah, he was key alright, can't grab a rebound off a free throw and he's 6-11? ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!